How Seed Oils Ended Up in Baby Formula (And Why It Shouldn’t Be There)
For most of human history, babies were fed breast milk—nature’s perfectly balanced, species-specific food. But over the last century, something changed. As formula companies tried to mimic the fat profile of breast milk, they started loading baby formula with linoleic acid (LA)—an unstable omega-6 fat found in industrial seed oils.
Trying to Mimic Breast Milk—With a Flawed Model
Here’s the irony: The reason modern formula contains so much LA is that companies were trying to copy the fatty acid profile of breast milk from modern mothers. But modern women—through no fault of their own—have unnaturally high LA levels in their milk, simply because today’s diet is overloaded with seed oils.
The average Western diet contains 10–20x more linoleic acid than our ancestors ever consumed. And since LA accumulates in body fat and breast tissue, mothers who eat seed oils (soybean, sunflower, safflower, canola, etc.) pass those fats directly into their breast milk.
So formula manufacturers looked at these already-skewed LA levels and used them as the baseline.
In other words:
Formulas are based on an already broken model.
What’s the Problem with LA in Baby Formula?
1. Human breast milk is supposed to be low in LA
In traditional populations eating whole-food, animal-based diets, breast milk contains only 6–10% LA. Many modern formulas now contain 20–25% or more, because of the high seed oil content.
2. LA is unstable and oxidizes easily
Linoleic acid breaks down into harmful byproducts like aldehydes and 4-HNE when exposed to heat and oxygen—common during formula processing. These byproducts are toxic to mitochondria and can damage DNA, proteins, and developing tissues.
3. Excess LA disrupts infant development
LA competes with other essential fats like arachidonic acid (ARA) and DHA, which are vital for brain development, immune system maturation, and hormone signaling. High LA displaces these protective fats and can impair early metabolic programming.
4. It may predispose children to chronic disease
Excess seed oil intake in infancy may increase the risk of metabolic dysfunction, insulin resistance, inflammation, and obesity later in life.
The “Essential” Fat Myth
Yes, linoleic acid is “essential” in the technical sense—your body can’t make it from scratch. But the amount needed is tiny—well below 1% of total calories. That amount is easily covered through normal animal fats in whole foods. There’s no need to flood formula (or any diet) with it.
The claim that LA is “essential” came from early rat studies in the 1920s where animals were fed fat-free diets and then “rescued” with corn oil. But these diets were also missing cholesterol, CLA, saturated fat, and fat-soluble vitamins—nutrients babies actually need.
What those animals lacked wasn’t seed oil.
It was simply fat.
What Should Be in Baby Formula Instead?
If we want to truly mimic breast milk, we need to bring back the kinds of fats humans evolved with:
Saturated fats (critical for brain and nervous system development)
Monounsaturated fats (stable and energy-rich)
Cholesterol (essential for hormones and cell membranes)
ARA and DHA (good omega 6 & omega 3 for brain and immune development)
CLA (metabolically protective and naturally anti-inflammatory)
Some European formulas have begun incorporating more milk fat and cream, but most still rely heavily on LA-rich seed oils.
Babies are not meant to be fed a synthetic blend of industrial fats.
Their cells, brains, and immune systems need the stable, bioavailable fats that have fueled human development for millennia—like those in breast milk before seed oils took over.
Video:
